A rumination on the experiences of living with advanced cancer while making art
Armed with portable, fixed and live projectors and cameras, the artist moves about the space projecting video onto inflated balloons, photographic prints, x-ray scans of her own body, as well as onto the bodies of the audience members.
Hammer uses her aging body to echo the worn planks of the floor and other architectural details of an old studio building, housing The Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation Space Program in 2014.
Hammer assembles a group of seven volunteers from the audience, each of whom dons a large white T-shirt and white mask. Thus attired, these participants become the three-dimensional screens onto which Hammer projects films of Palestinians telling their stories
A 12′ diameter translucent balloon is suspended from the ceiling. Two 16mm projectors are prepared with light sculpting funnels (curled black paper) for circular projection.
A performance with a candy-covered television set atop a table laden with desserts, served to all by Barbara, dressed as a "tart." Original performance was in conjunction with a dinner held for the Women's Caucus for the Arts at the Hilton Hotel in New York City, in February 1989.
A round translucent screen, an inflated weather balloon provides another form for activating the audience. To see the film spectators move around and under the screen. The audience movement creates multiple viewpoints as the image curves and bends.
“Be Mine Valentine” Performance, 80 Langton Street, San Francisco
July 14 & 15, 1980 at Glyptotek Museum, Copenhagen, and at the Performance Gallery in San Francisco, California, December 11-14, 1980.
Barbara Hammer dreamed of space, of freeing the rectangular film screen to a more liberated form, of escaping the confines of the frame, the “domestic house”. In AVAILABLE SPACE she pushed the limits of restriction in eight different sections and eight different ways.
Postcards & performance (January 1980), Oakland, California
El Cerrito Bay, California
May 1979
“The Great Goddess” Performance, Skylight Studio, Berkeley
A performance in front of the old Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco.
